Monday October 05, 2009 
Monday October 05, 2009 There's been a pretty lively online discussion amongst the members of CCM (Council of Communication Management) about social networking and social media tools. It started off with what seemed to be an innocent question from one of our members:
What are your key challenges when building senior management support for social media strategies?
What followed was a flood of comments, but the conversation really peaked my interest when one of the greats in our profession, Roger D'Aprix, spoke up (quoted with permission):
"...Why are we trying so hard to ram social media down the throats of senior leaders and get them to do something their instincts tell them is not a good idea? Where is the business case? If we can't show one and if there isn't any demonstrable ROI, don't we run the risk of further diminishing our often fragile credibility as a profession?As usual, Roger pushed the group to make sure we were considering the right question.
My mother used to tell me long ago that "Just because everyone else is doing it is not a good enough reason." And in this case, even that is not yet true.
This will probably bring the wrath of the gods down on me, but if I were the senior decision-maker, I'd want to see a solid business case specific to my organization."
There are surely many tactical issues to be considering when introducing social media to the "higher ups," and many tactical pitfalls when encouraging its use. But as Roger points out, if you don't know what problem you're trying to solve, the tactical issues are pretty irrelevant. Because no CEO worth his or her salt is going to approve an approach that is in search of a problem rather than the other way around.
So how do you determine the problem? Funny you should ask.
When I first came to Sun, I used my past experience to develop and articulate a way to develop true communication strategy. The tool, named the KAA Model (Knowledge, Attitude, Action) is an almost painfully simple way to keep the communication professional leading the discussion, not following. In its simplest form, you need to ask yourself a series of questions that will help you identify the gap between current state and desire future state. This is done before tools are selected.
Because while social networking is a revolutionary way to create different online behavior and true participation and exchange, you still need to know where you're going and how you'll know if you get there.
Look before you leap. Think before you recommend. Good mantras (trite because they're TRUE) to keep in mind regardless of how shiny the new toy is and how tempting it is to use...
Posted by terrymckenzie ( Oct 05 2009, 02:56:48 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]
